I purchased at auction a McCormick #30 sheller in decent shape to add to our corn processing demonstrations at the farm. one of the other guys decided to plant some cow corn of some sort so we got an old Case two row planter functional for that purpose. next problem....cultivating....
we had a BN with a full set of cultivators that had been moved from the field to under cover in the shed with a stuck motor. been sitting years outside, sorta covered... well you get the picture. it had been towed, MMO in the cylinders, nothing.

My son Dave tore it down in the yard. found #3 rusted up, but the head had been recently done over, from the looks of it.

Rain in new england over the weekend prohibited working outside on an engine, so i moved it up to my shop to continue (mostly because i needed a rusty iron / grease weekend !) 1 set of rings, hone the cylinder, grind the valves in #3, gaskets, a peek in the carb, a fresh mag (sure is nice having Mark's Magneto's owner as our president), a couple gallons of gas and ......

the BN went out cultivating yesterday after a trip to the sand pit for tool rust removal..... and the shortcoming of the BN was immediately apparent.....

the inability to move the rear wheels makes it barely able to straddle the rows properly.....need to move the wheels in a little more. i've got to look at it a little closer, but perhaps i can gain some with spacers.

The tread width can be changed by reversing the wheel disc. By turning the tires and rims around on the wheel disc. By moving the lug holding the rim to the wheel disk from inside to outside. Tread width can be change from 64 inches minimum to 92 inches maximum in 4 inch increments.

i just realized that i didn't respond with any results. The rear cultivator arms attach to the final drives in such a manner as to prevent narrowing the BN to it's narrowest setting. (the tires will interfere). turns out, the present setting will work as long as the rows are planted correctly, a learning curve to be sure. the tractor works well, but needs transmission work. it's screaming in high gear, especially under downhill condition. probably ring and pinion wear.